


Velar Stop

by glittertech



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: Developing Relationship, Languages and Linguistics, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-17
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-11-19 14:42:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 660
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18137096
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glittertech/pseuds/glittertech
Summary: Perhaps Barnaby calls Kotetsu "old man" for more than one reason.Set very early in their partnership.





	Velar Stop

“You should be working, old man,” Barnaby scolded him, not for the first time that day. Or hour.

Truthfully, Kotetsu had been done with all his paperwork for a while. Damage claims were all basically the same and went pretty fast if he was bored enough to do them. He didn’t get as much media attention as Barnaby, which has the upside of reducing the amount of endorsement proposals, interview requests, and other business-y things he had to read. Kotetsu once asked Agnes if he could have a personal assistant or an agent to handle that stuff for him and she just laughed until he left the room.

“Old man this, old man that. If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you didn’t even know my name,” Kotetsu grumbled.

“It’s good for us that you know better,” Barnaby shot back icily. He scribbled his signature onto a piece of paper and then heaved a thirty page document over to his pile of completed paperwork. Kotetsu didn’t so much have neat stacks of documents as an uneven gradient spread across his desk.

“You know,” Kotetsu said, ignoring the exasperated sound Barnaby made, “I’m not actually sure that I do.”

“Do what?” Barnaby asked, having been successfully irritated to the point where he’d humor Kotetsu if it got the veteran hero to leave him alone.

“Know better. Prove it to me,” Kotetsu said, gesturing grandly at his partner. His partner squinted suspiciously at him.

“I just have to say your name and you’ll leave me alone?” Barnaby clarified. Kotetsu nodded.

“Fine, _Ko_ - _tet_ - _su_ ,” he said, overemphasizing each syllable. He turned back to his paperwork.

“No, no, that’s too easy. First and last,” Kotetsu demanded. Barnaby sighed loudly enough to make the accountant lady look up at them.

“Kotetsu,” Barnaby said, and then he did a curious thing where his fingers tightened their grip on his pen and he exhaled sharply, “Kaburagi,” squashing the vowels flat in his haste to spit them out.

Kotetsu couldn’t help but chuckle at that and muttered “Too much butter on your tongue,” under his breath.

“Excuse me?” Barnaby cut in impolitely, already sounding offended about something that may or may not be an insult.

“Sorry, sorry. It’s something my mom says about Americans trying to speak Japanese. They eat too much butter to pronounce it right,” Kotetsu explained.

“Ah,” Barnaby said, his knuckles going white around his pen. He sounded a little disappointed. It was only then that Kotetsu saw the whole picture and was almost charmed by it. This one chink in Barnaby’s armor made him a bit more likeable.

“Now listen here! I’ll only say this once!” Kotetsu announced with a joking kind of urgency. Barnaby jumped in his chair and dropped his pen. “It’s _Ka_ - _bu_ - _ra_ - _gi_ , do you understand? Repeat it back to me!”

“ _Ka_ - _bu_ - _ra_ - _gi_?” Barnaby repeated with a look of alarm on his face, his voice pitching up at the end to make it a question.

“Good! Remember that and you’ll never get it wrong again. We’ll have your tongue ungreased in no time!” Kotetsu congratulated him, pausing to pat his partner on the shoulder before he marched around the corner toward the vending machines.

He heard Barnaby mutter “Right, Kaburagi. Ka-bu-ra-gi,” when he stepped out of sight. Kotetsu got an orange soda for himself and an iced coffee for Barnaby. The poor guy had no idea that he’d keep his cool better if he didn’t take everything so personally. It almost made Kotetsu feel bad on the rare occasions that he pushed his buttons.

Barnaby looked just as collected and unaffected as ever when Kotetsu returned to their desk space. Kotetsu set the coffee on Barnaby’s desk without a word. Barnaby seemed to understand, since he took the bottle and opened it.

“Thank you,” he said distractedly as he leafed through a pile of papers.

“ _Ieie_ ,” Kotetsu replied, not loud enough for Barnaby to hear.

**Author's Note:**

> A (voiceless) velar stop is the linguistic term describing how we say "K" sounds. 
> 
> Ieie: "You're welcome" or "Don't mention it" in Japanese, literally translated as "No, no".


End file.
